Photo by César Viteri on Unsplash

Porn may not be the first thing that comes to mind as a topic for a conversation about a book, but as William Boyle and Ace Atkins converse about Boyle’s new book “A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself,” they touch on a little bit of everything.

This book follows three women, Rena, Lucia and an ex-porn star, Lacey Wolfstein, as they head out on a road trip after Rena believes that she has murdered her neighbor.

Boyle said that Wolfstein’s character was based on porn star Lisa De Leeux.

“I was really fascinated with Lisa De Leeux, not from watching but with her story,” Boyle said.

Boyle said when he was creating his character he wanted to imagine a life or a new existence for somebody.

Boyle also pulls characters from other people he has encountered in his life. Enzo, a creepy old man in the story, attempts to entice Rena by bringing her flowers, offering her wine and cookies and turning on porn.

“He did it,” Boyle said. “He put on porn as his move.”

Throughout their conversation both Boyle and Atkins produced laughter from all of the people gathered at Off Square Books. They dance around the major points in the story but still had a conversation about all the details that make this book critically acclaimed.

“Comic crime capers are fun. Comic crime capers starring women are even more fun,” Marilyn Stasio said in her New York Times article “From Drug Cartels to the Mafia, Crime Runs in the Family.” This article reviewed Boyle’s book and similar crime driven novels.

“I wanted to write something in the tradition of the screwball crime movies and books I love,” Boyle said. “There’s so much humor in the stories and voices I grew up hearing, too—I wanted the book to be rooted in that.”

“It’s kind of a Huck Finn adventure,” Atkins said. “Its a book about an aging porn star, a woman on the run and a coming of age story… it is everything.”

The novel is centered on three strong female characters.

“This is a book about women,” Atkins said.

The book is set in the Brooklyn, New York which is based on the area that Boyle grew up in.

“Place-wise, I don’t know if I would have the same authority over any other place,” Boyle said.

Boyle also stated that he sets many of his stories in the past. This novel is set in 2006 because these were the times that Boyle lived there. Today everything, including the landscapes of neighborhoods, is changing.

Attendee Lily Copley said it was great coming to the event because she is also from New York. She said that here in Oxford she doesn’t meet that many people that are also from New York, and she would have never known someone else from New York had she not come.

Much of Boyle’s work stems from things that he has experienced in his life. Boyle was asked about the role that growing up Catholic played in his novels.

“I think everything I write is informed by it in some way,” Boyle said. “It’s Catholic haunted… I always write about the things that haunt me. I think it’s one of the main things that haunt me in good and bad ways.”

This book is Boyle’s fifth with his previous one published in 2018.

“I have a better sense of what the book is about in a conversation compared to a book talk,” Copley said. “It was much more in depth and actually made me want to read the book.”

“I hope people are interested in the book but that they also go away with a list of other stuff they want to watch, read, and listen to,” Boyle said.